Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

Since the creation of international refugee law under the 1951 Refugee Convention and the subsequent 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, state parties are obliged to protect displaced persons if they fit within the treaties' definition of a refugee. Among other criteria, there are certain protected groups that individuals must be members of to be considered a refugee, one of which is membership in a particular social group. There is no strict definition of what membership in a particular social group is under international law, so state parties are left to interpret this language within their domestic legal systems. Two state parties to these treaties that are of concern in their interpretation of this aspect of the definition of a refugee under international law are Canada and the United States. Particularly of concern in this context is their interpretations of whether women victims of domestic violence fall within that protected ground.

Both Canada and the United States have sometimes recognized the asylum claims of women victims of domestic violence as valid based on their respective interpretive definitions of particular social group. However, both systems interpret whether a group of individuals fit within the definition of a particular social group on a case-by-case basis. This breeds inconsistency and oftentimes impossibly high legal thresholds for the protection of women domestic violence victims as refugees, a particularly vulnerable sect of displaced persons. As such, to uphold international human rights standards and to promote consistency in the adjudication of these types of asylum claims in each respective state, Canada and the United States must act swiftly to codify gender-based asylum claims as a protected ground under their domestic refugee laws.

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